FRAMINGHAM - Framingham State this week revealed it is moving forward with plans to create a system of colleges within the university.

The school is currently forming search committees to find deans from within the current faculty to lead the three new academic colleges debuting this fall: arts and humanities; science, technology, engineering and mathematics; and social and behavioral sciences.

Framingham State will also launch a wider search to find a dean to run a college of education in 2015, and may also start a college of business after that.

The transition to colleges, which was announced publicly this past school year, has been blessed by new Framingham State President F. Javier Cevallos, who told the Daily News last week the change would help create "really good synergies" between the academic departments. The university's board of trustees has also signed off on the concept, expressing support for the plan at a meeting in March and approving a fiscal 2015 budget that included money for it in May.

"We're really excited about it," said Linda Vaden-Goad, vice president of academic affairs. "We've moved very deliberately and carefully toward this, so everyone could see it is a more workable and effective type of structure."

Framingham State is the fourth of the state's six comprehensive state universities to have a system of academic colleges or schools, joining Bridgewater State, Salem State, and Worcester State. During the university's presidential search this past year that yielded Cevallos as the finalist, many of the candidates expressed concern that Framingham State didn't employ the model, which Vaden-Goad said is "considered to be a very typical structure" in higher education.

Currently at Framingham State, all the school's academic departments report to Vaden-Goad, who admitted she can't as quickly respond to their needs as she would like. Creating subordinate academic deans, she said, would allow the various divisions to better collaborate and communicate within their disciplines, as well as develop more targeted strategies for aligning curriculum with regional workforce needs.

"The different clusters of disciplines all align differently - you need people who understand that," Vaden-Goad said. "And I think that's what we'll be able to do."

The budget for this year's switch to colleges is around $250,000, which includes the promotions of the three new deans and the salary of an administrative assistant. A financial spreadsheet made public earlier this year by the university showed several hundred thousand more dollars could be spent in subsequent years on the two other proposed colleges, but Vaden-Goad on Tuesday said it is still too early to get into the specific costs of those additions.

While a system of colleges or schools is the standard at the nation's top institutions, the state's higher education department hasn't issued a directive for the state's public schools to adopt the model. But Carlos Santiago, the agency's senior deputy commissioner for academic affairs, said Framingham State's independent move is "a reflection of a growing, maturing academic enterprise on campus."

Page 2 of 2 - "It shows a greater degree of disciplinary specialization, and at Framingham, with a new president starting his tenure, it's perhaps a good time to initiate new organizational structures," he said.

Scott O'Connell can be reached at 508-626-4449 or soconnell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottOConnellMW